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Kevin Beasley inHarlem: Kevin Beasley Morningside Park Aug 25, 2016 - Jul 25, 2017 inHarlem: Kevin Beasley features Who’s Afraid to Listen to Red, Black and Green?, and transforms a section of Morningside Park into a stage. Beasley installed a trio of large-scale sculptures he refers to as “acoustic mirrors,” incorporating his signature found materials. Each sculpture features one of the colors of the African-American flag in the form of found red, black, or green T-shirts cast in resin. The acoustic mirrors enable a variety of planned performances and encourage impromptu use by mem- bers of the Harlem community. Who’s Afraid to Listen to Red, Black and Green? reflects the artist’s complementary interests in sculpture, sound and community-building, and will create a unique space for both contemplation and conversation. inHarlem: Kevin Beasley, Simone Leigh, Kori Newkirk, Rudy Shepherd is organized by Amanda Hunt, Assistant Curator, in part- nership with the NYC Parks along with the Marcus Garvey Park Alliance. What to See in New York Art Galleries This Week By MARTHA SCHWENDENER, KAREN ROSENBERG and KEN JOHNSON inHarlem: Kevin Beasley, Simone Leigh, Kori Newkirk and Rudy Shepherd Marcus Garvey Park, Morningside Park, St. Nicholas Park and Jackie Robinson Park Through July 25 Public art is a difficult genre because you’re exhibiting work to a public in which everyone’s a critic. Harlem — and particularly Marcus Garvey Park — has been achieving the delicate balance of exhibiting challenging, innovative art and serving a neighbor- hood in transition. Spread across four Harlem parks, the “inHarlem” outdoor installation was organized by Amanda Hunt of the Studio Museum in Harlem, along with the New York City Department of Parks & Recreation and the Marcus Garvey Park Alliance. It includes Simone Leigh’s beautiful re-creations of rotunda kitchen houses from rural Zimbabwe — except, Ms. Leigh recasts them as closed-up structures, painted black and left vacant by Africans who’ve migrated elsewhere. Kevin Beasley’s round, concave “acoustic mirrors” in Morningside Park, made with T-shirts cast in resin, borrow a form used by governments during wars to capture sound. Titled “Who’s Afraid to Listen to Red, Black and Green?” (2016), they pay homage both to Barnett Newman’s series of monochrome paintings, “Who’s Afraid of Red, Yellow and Blue” (1966-70), and the voices and music of the African diaspora. Kori Newkirk’s reflective curtains, hung over the steps in St. Nicholas Park, resemble Christo and Jeanne-Claude’s “The Gates” (2005) in Central Park. Meanwhile, in Jackie Robinson Park, Rudy Shepherd has created a giant “Black Rock Negative Energy Absorber” (2016) out of wood, metal and concrete — a quasi-abstract sculpture designed to exude positive energy and cast out bad mojo in a society in which black bodies are still under siege, and in a rapidly gentrifying Harlem. - MARTHA SCHWENDENER Schwendener, Martha, “What to see in New York Galleries This Week: inHarlem”, New York Times, September 23, 2016, C19 Bouthillier, Rose, “Kevin Beasley. Energy Accumulates”, Cura, No. 22, Summer, Pg 118 - 125, 2016 Apr 24-Jun 26, 2016 BETWEEN THE TICKS OF THE WATCH Kevin Beasley, Peter Downsbrough, Goutam Ghosh, Falke Pisano, Martha Wilson What we understand to be true is continually honed by the dialectic between skepticism and certainty. Doubt can be an essential epistemological method for identifying new avenues of inquiry, opening space for the germination of novel forms and concepts. At the same time, doubt also eats away at the foundation of understanding itself, calling into question the very possibility of knowledge. Between the Ticks of the Watch presents a platform for considering doubt as both a state of mind and pragmatic tool. Rather than defining the concept, the exhibition traces how uncertainty manifests itself. In different ways, the artworks presented and accompanying program of talks and screenings offer glimpses of how the condition of doubt permeates questions of scientific verification, identity, construction of language, and broader philosophical concerns. Kevin Beasley presents a new installation featuring objects comprised of gas masks and megaphones: these hy- brids are poised both to defend against and to facilitate expressions of power. Here, they lay on the floor, ready to be activated in situations of conflict. Peter Downsbrough’s works are marked by an investigation into the spatial possibilities of language and the linguistic possibilities of space. His spare installations use lines to structure and divide and treat words as objects which are frequently split, mirrored, or otherwise manipulated. The collaged drawings of Goutam Ghosh appear to have been paused mid-execution; often structured by an un- derlying grid, the remaining empty space lingers uncertainly between inception and completion. The value in mathematics (language), a recent video by Falke Pisano, centers on a conversation between the artist and two ethnomathematicians as they discuss how qualitative interpretations can undermine what are otherwise considered to be objective truths. With a biting playfulness, Martha Wilson combines photography and text to stage acts of self-questioning, using her own shifting appearance to explore the fluidity of identity and its representations. This exhibition is supported by the National Endowment for the Arts and Harper Court Arts Council. Chicago “Between the Ticks of the Watch” THE RENAISSANCE SOCIETY 5811 South Ellis Avenue, Cobb Hall, 4th floor April 24–June 26 Curated by Solveig Øvstebø, “Between the Ticks of the Watch” explores fault lines within conventional thought through the work of Kevin Beasley, Peter Downsbrough, Goutam Ghosh, Falke Pisano, and Martha Wilson. In Posturing, 1973/2008, one among a suite of self-portrait photographs on display here, Wilson traces her transformation from a woman to a man to man in drag. Text beneath the image reads: “Theoreti- cally, the uninitiated audience sees only half of this process, from ‘male’ into ‘female.’” Downsbrough’s architectural inter- vention And as There, 2016, includes one thin pole hanging View of “Between the Ticks of the Watch,” 2016. from the ceiling. By its base on the floor, “AND” is printed in vinyl letters in all caps, and the adjacent windows are inscribed with “AS” and “THERE,” printed backward. As though intended for an outside audience, “THERE” imposes the relativity of one’s linguistic position. Ghosh’s abstract paintings hang unstretched and furling on the wall and are composed alternately of delicate geometric lines that delineate the picture plane and earth- toned, curvilinear marks that read like incomplete notes from unrecognizable computations. In Beasley’s sculptural installation Your Face Is/Is Not Enough, 2016, gas masks embellished with feathers, cheetah prints, umbrellas, and baseball hats rest on microphone stands beside similarly adorned megaphones. Activated by performers during the opening, the objects seem to await further inhabitation; they invite resistance through the co-optation of police-issue riot gear. Finally, Pisano’s film The Value in Mathematics (Language), 2015, investigates the relationship between philosophy, religion, democracy, and geometry. The re- strained intersections of these works puncture underlying assumptions about how accessible space, place, and logic might be. — Caroline Picard Picard, Caroline, “Critic’s Picks: Between the Ticks of the Watch”, Artforum (online), May 26, 2016 PEOPLE 10 Black Artists to Celebrate in 2016 By Rain Embuscado February 13, 2016 Kevin Beasley, Untitled Stanzas: Staff/Un/Site (2015), Photo: Courtesy of the artist. 5. Kevin Beasley Arguably best-remembered for his big-league debut at the Whitney Museum's 2014 Biennial, American artist Kevin Beasley has recently taken his industrial-inspired sound works out of the white box and onto the stage. Last fall, Beasley hosted "Untitled Stanzas: Staff/Un/Site," a hybrid performance-piece sound installation that saw him layering audio recordings over a two-day period on New York's Chelsea High Line. Earlier this year, the artist joined a group exhibition at the historic White Columns Gallery in New York. The eponymous "10th Anniversary White Columns Annual" includes veterans Rainer Ganahl, Nancy Shaver and 22 others and runs through February 20. According to the Casey Kaplan Gallery, who represents Beasley, the artist is also looking forward to another major group exhibition at the Modern Art Oxford in London opening April 15th, alongside Yoko Ono, David Maljkovic, and Njideka Akunyili Crosby among others. Embuscado, Rain, “10 Black Artists to Celebrate in 2016”, Artnet News (online), February 13, 2016 Battaglia, Andy, “The Art of Curation”, V Magazine, Issue V99, Spring, 2016, Pg. 54-59 8 Things to Do in New York’s Art World Before September 25 By Paul Laster | September 21, 2015 Kevin Beasley, BEATEN-FACE/TOMS/ARMS, TIES, & LEG/FLOOR/BODY/BASS, 2014. Photo by Nicole Gurney. (Photo: Courtesy the artist and Casey Kaplan, New York) TUESDAY, SEPTEMBER 22 Performance: “Kevin Beasley: Untitled Stanzas: Staff/Un/Site” at The High Line Sculptor and sound artist Kevin Beasley performs a new sound piece that he composed using entirely sounds recorded around the High Line—from chirping crickets to construction noise and traffic—over the course of the past few months. Come back on Wednesday and Thursday nights and you’ll hear the experimental artist’s previous night’s performances layered on top of that evening’s piece. The High Line, West 30 Street & 12th Avenue, New York, 6 p.m. Laster, Paul, “8 Things to Do in New York’s Art World Before September 25”, Observer (online), September 21, 2015 Kevin Beasley Untitled Stanzas: Staff/Un/Site Tuesday, September 22, 2015 Wednesday, September 23, 2015 Thursday, September 24, 2015 Performance at 6:00 PM High Line at the Rail Yards On the High Line at West 30th Street and 12th Avenue Image: Kevin Beasley, BEATEN-FACE/TOMS/ARMS, TIES, & LEG/FLOOR/BODY/BASS, 2014 Photo by Nicole Gurney. Courtesy the artist and Casey Kaplan, New Yorrk Free Admission | Open To All Ages | No RSVP Required Kevin Beasley creates densely layered sculptures and sound-based performances that form immersive tactile ex- periences.
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  • Kevin Beasley on How Sound Shapes His Art,” Fader, November 2014, Online
    Kevin Beasely, I Want My Spot Back, 2013 CULTURE/FEATURE Visual Identity: Kevin NOVEMBER 7, 2014 Beasley On How Sound Shapes His Art By HARRY GASSEL Kevin Beasley's studio is in the part of Long Island City that's a far walk from any of the high street style shops, restaurants or bars. The story of how the New York based artist ended up there involves a fluid and somewhat unbelievable set of circumstances, like hearing about a rent-controlled two bedroom in the West Village. Beasley explains that as he was finishing up his year long artist-in- residency at the Studio Museum in Harlem, a collector offered him use of a largely abandoned wreck above a parking garage. He talks in detail about the work he's put into breaking down rooms, putting up dry wall, and wiring the space for sound—something that's become an important part of Beasley's sculpture practice. A room in back that used to house the owner's massive comic book collection has been left intact and turned into a fully functioning music studio. Originally from Virginia before he settled in NYC, Beasley's work has for the past several years been a mixture of sculpture and audio based works. Like I Want My Spot Back, an improvised soundscape built out of heavily manipulated hip-hop acapellas from dead rappers like Tupac and Ol' Dirty Bastard which he performs on a modified but recognizable nightclub style turntable rig [that's him performing it above at MoMA in 2012]. In it clear snippets, like a passage from The Notorious BIG's "Long Kiss Goodnight" (from which the piece gets its name) seep up out of a viscous, subterranean bed of sound made up of metal and bubble-like effects that could very well be used to score a scene on a near-future battleship.
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